In recent years, electrically powered vehicles have become widespread that employ batteries as sources of drive force, such as electric automobiles that employ batteries for providing their drive force and hybrid vehicles that employ batteries for providing part of their drive force. Along with electrically powered vehicles (hereinafter simply referred to as “vehicles”) of this type becoming more widespread, “charging spots” have appeared at various locations, at which, when it is desired to charge a battery that is provided to an electrically powered vehicle, it is possible to perform charging of the battery of the vehicle in the state in which the vehicle is stopped.
Furthermore, as another method of charging a battery that is fitted to an electrically operated vehicle, plans are underway for implementing “charging lanes” in which the batteries provided to electrically powered vehicles can be charged up while the vehicles are traveling. In response to plans for implementing such “charging lanes”, a technique for performing route guidance to a destination while considering the possibilities for charging up the vehicle battery using “charging lanes” and “charging spots” has been proposed (refer to Patent Document #1, hereinafter termed the “prior art”).